The Cartographers’ Guild is a forum created by and for map makers and aficionados, a place where every aspect of cartography can be admired, examined, learned, and discussed. Our membership consists of professional designers and artists, hobbyists, and amateurs—all are welcome to join and participate in the quest for cartographic skill and knowledge.

Although we specialize in maps of fictional realms, as commonly used in both novels and games (both tabletop and role-playing), many Guild members are also proficient in historical and contemporary maps. Likewise, we specialize in computer-assisted cartography (such as with GIMP, Adobe apps, Campaign Cartographer, Dundjinni, etc.), although many members here also have interest in maps drafted by hand.

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Greetings!

I'm new to the forum, interested in learning mapmaking for my weekly D&D game. It's play by chat, so I have some unique challenges when it comes to showing my players the lay of the land. Hopefully I'll get good quick so they see things the way I see them. Any tips for a total noob are appreciated, and tips for running a game via chat are too, although so far we're doing pretty well.

hi Leylia, welcome to the guild ... check out our tutorial and when you're ready to map yourself post in a WIP (work in progress) thread for help and critique.

I've used fantasy grounds for playing D&D online with friends, it features dice-rolling a chat window and the possibility of showing pictures and maps (or parts of maps) to your players ... a lot inhere commend Map Tools as well - haven't tried that but it looks good and also have fog-of-war feature (not showing things your players can't see).

I wish I had a tablet. It would make everything a lot easier. I recently downloaded AutoREALM, so if anyone can give me a review (good or bad are both helpful) on that I'd appreciate it. I also own Corel Painter X, which I've used a little bit for some artwork, but might be handy here too.

What is Fantasy Grounds? It sounds like a program for running a game in. If this is the case, I need to get it a year ago.

There are several very good VTT programs out there.
Fantasy grounds you have already heard of.
Maptools is the number 1 free vtt out there (http://www.rptools.net)
Ttrpg is another good free one out there (do a web search)
D20pro is another excellent paid program (http://www.d20pro.com)